Personal blog - IT tutorials and occasional political rants.

Throwback | Using Windows 2000 in 2015.

To start off my small series about using outdated and unsupported OS’ in 2015, I’ll be using Windows 2000 for a few days and will attempt to complete a series of day-to-day tasks that we’re accustomed to doing in 2015.

I will attempt the following tasks:

General Web Browsing – How well do websites of today (Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc) work on an operating system that’s a decade and a half old.

Instant Messaging – I’ll attempt to see which instant messaging services work

Software Used:

I will attempt all of these tasks with: Windows 2000 Professional SP4, Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Enterprise Edition, and Opera 12.02.

General Web Browsing:

When using Opera 12.02, general web browsing works reasonably well. Facebook, Twitter, BBC News, and The Guardian all work as they should. However, websites don’t load properly with the built in Internet Explorer 5.

This category: PASS.

Media Websites:

At the time of writing Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and BBC iPlayer all require Adobe Flash to operate. The last version of Adobe Flash that I can find that will install on Windows 2000 is 10.1.102.64 (available here). Sadly, this version isn’t recent enough for Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and BBC iPlayer. YouTube, however, works flawlessly.

Amazon Prime Instant Video requires a newer version of Adobe Flash, there aren’t any newer releases for Windows 2000.

BBC iPlayer – No

BBC iPlayer doesn’t give any errors but videos refuse to load. The box where the videos live just stays black.

YouTube – YES

YouTube still works brilliantly with Adobe Flash 10. As such, YouTube works brilliantly on Windows 2000.

This category: FAIL.

Email

Next up is email. Email hasn’t actually changed very much so I can’t imagine we’ll have any problems with it.

The Gmail website works fine as does connecting to Gmail via IMAP with Microsoft Outlook 2003. This applies to Hotmail/Outlook too.

This category: PASS.

Cloud Services:

Cloud services is a very mixed bag. There aren’t desktop apps for neither OneDrive not Google Drive. Google Drive’s website also doesn’t work (as seen below).

However, OneDrive’s website works fine.

This category: FAIL.

Office Suites:

The most recent version of Microsoft Office that supports Windows 2000 is Office 2003. If you don’t want compatibility with the new Office file format then you’re fine. Microsoft do offer a compatibility pack that should allow you to use the new format with Office 2003 that installed fine but didn’t actually work. Opening .docx files failed and so did saving them.

HOWEVER

At the time of writing the OneDrive website works pretty well with Windows 2000. As such, if you wanted to edit and create Office 2007+ documents you can do so via the OneDrive website.

This category: FAIL.

Instant Messaging:

Instant Messaging is a fairly important and integral part of our day-to-day lives. As such it follows that the ability to use instant messaging services on your computer is fairly important.

Desktop Apps:

There aren’t any versions of Skype Desktop that work with Windows 2000 anymore. MSN is now dead and Telegram’s app installs but doesn’t open.

Web Based:

Skype Web doesn’t work and nor does Telegram’s website. Skype flat out says the browser is unsupported and Telegram’s website just doesn’t respond to clicks.

Conclusion:

General Web Browsing – PASS

Media Websites – FAIL

Email – PASS

Cloud Services – FAIL

Office Suites – FAIL

Instant Messaging – FAIL

Windows 2000, as the name suggests, is definitely an operating system that belongs in the past. Barely any of the products and services we’re used to using in 2015 work on it and for those that do: it’s only a matter of time before they stop working too. Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, OneDrive, and YouTube all work fine but beyond that Windows 2000 is unsuitable for use for anything beyond wanting to have a quick look at it for nostalgic purposes. For day-to-day use, unsurprisingly, Windows 2000 receives a score of 2/5.